The first railway station to be built in Rugby was a wooden
temporary structure located around half a mile to the west of the present
station. It opened in 1838 when the London and Birmingham Railway was
constructed. This station lasted only a few years. When a junction was made
with the Midland Counties Railway in 1840 a new station was built nearer the
present station site although still slightly to the west. This second station
was effectively managed by two companies - the London and North Western Railway
and the Midland Railway - and for this reason grew up in a haphazard fashion.
It was at first no more than a temporary wooden structure, but was rebuilt in
brick in 1850. This station consisted of platforms at each side of the track
with one bay platform. The platforms were rather low and passengers complained
of having to perform an "acrobatic feat" to board trains. The station was at
the centre of a busy junction and often saw chaotic scenes. It featured, only
lightly disguised, in Charles Dickens's story Mugby Junction.

The second station lasted until the 1880s, when a new line
from Rugby to Northampton was built, and it was replaced by the current
structure which opened in 1885. This station exists until the 21st century,
albeit modified, consisting of one large island platform with tracks on both
sides and bay platforms at each end. The platform was accessed from a tunnel at
road level and a ramp leading to the platforms. The station was noted for an
unusual feature, the 'scissor junction' which allowed two trains to be in one
platform at the same time. The scissor junction was an X shaped junction which
allowed one train to pass another one already in the platform, and call into
the same platform ahead of it, and allowed the train to the rear to pull out of
the station. For this reason the station has one of the longest platforms of
any British railway station. The scissor junctions remained in use until the
railway was electrified in the 1960s. At its height, as well as the West Coast
Main Line, Rugby station served railway lines to Leicester, Leamington Spa, and
Peterborough via Market Harborough. In the 1960s all but the West Coast line
were closed as part of the Beeching Axe. As a part of the West Coast Main Line
modernisation programme, major track restructuring work was carried out to
allow higher speed running through Rugby; three new platforms were added, along
with a new ticket office and entrance. Work began in September 2006 and was
completed late in 2008.

The following contemporary writings have been provided by
Ian Petticrew and Wendy Austin, as extracts from their excellent on-line
discourse 'The Train Now Departing' which comprises notes and extracts
on the history of the London to Birmingham Railway.

Commenting on the construction of the London to Birmingham
Railway, 'I REJOICE TO SEE IT AND THINK THAT FEUDALITY HAS GOVE
FOREVER. Dr. Thomas Arnold . . . . so said the distinguished
historian and headmaster of Rugby School on first seeing a London and
Birmingham Railway train pass through the town. Another commentator, Lieut.
Peter Lecount R.N., a member of Stephensons project team, had this to
say: 'The London and Birmingham Railway is unquestionably the greatest
public work ever executed, either in ancient or modern times. If we estimate
its importance by the labour alone which has been expended on it, perhaps the
Great Chinese Wall might compete with it; but when we consider the immense
outlay of capital which it has required  the great and varied talents
which have been in a constant state of requisition during the whole of its
progress  together with the unprecedented engineering difficulties, which
we are happy to say are now overcome  the gigantic work of the Chinese
sinks totally into the shade.'

Until the London and Birmingham Railway arrived in 1838 and
the Midland Counties Railway two years later, Rugby had been a small rural town
with a population of around 2,500. Railways were to prove a major factor in its
development. The proliferation of railway yards and workshops attracted workers
to the town, and by the 1880s its population exceeded 10,000. In the
following decades heavy engineering industries were set up, and Rugby became a
major industrial centre. By the 1940s its population had reached 40,000 growing
to in excess of 60,000 by 2013.

The earliest station was located on an embankment, about
half a mile to the west of the present station at the point where the former
Leamington branch left the main line. Todays traveller approaching the
site could be forgiven for failing to recognise any aspect of the landscape
depicted in Roscoes Guide: 'In the space of a minute the train passes
over the road from Rugby to Lutterworth, and arrives at the Rugby Station,
distant from London eighty-three, and from Birmingham twenty-nine miles. The
landscape on all sides is remarkable for the diversified site of the ground,
the rich succession of red fallows and green meadows, with the uplands clothed
with majestic woods of the most luxuriant foliage. The embankment on which this
station is situated is one mile long, and varies from thirty to forty feet in
height ? it contains 105,000 cubic yards of earth.' The London and
Birmingham Railway, Roscoe and Lecount (1839).

Opened in April 1838, the first Rugby Station was intended
to be temporary, probably because the exact location of the junction with the
planned Midland Counties Railway had yet to be decided. Despite its status, the
Stations architect was sufficiently proud of his creation to exhibit a
drawing of it which cant now be traced at the Royal Academy Exhibition
held in London in 1838. The catalogue entry reads: '1064. View of the
temporary Rugby Station now building for the London and Birmingham Railway
Company. G. Aitchison.'

Roscoe and Lecount provide a brief description: 'Close to
the bridge, on the east side of the Railway, is a lofty chimney belonging to
the pumping engine, which supplies the tank with water for the locomotive
engines; and on the opposite side is the station house and booking offices.
This building is erected in the Swiss style, with a large projecting roof, and
is arranged so as to afford accommodation to passengers both arriving and
departing. The booking offices are on the ground floor, and a staircase leads
to the waiting rooms above on the level of the Railway, to gain which a large
covered enclosure is passed under, while parties wishing to leave the Railway
descend from the line by a separate staircase, so that all confusion is
avoided.' The London and Birmingham Railway, Roscoe and Lecount (1839).

Owing to the difficulty of gaining lodgings for the servants
of the Company, a number of small wooden cottages were erected on the left of
the station, at the far side of the area, where the omnibuses and coaches used
to collect to take the passengers on from here to Denbigh Hall, prior to the
completion of the intervening portion of the line. Osborne's London &
Birmingham Railway Guide, EC and W Osborne (1840).

Francis Wishaw gives a detailed description of what he
describes as Ruby's second station but in fact (according to Stephen Weston of
the LNWR Society and author of various articles) is a description of Rugby's
first station. Wishaw wrote: 'The station at Rugby is situate on the west
side of the railway, which at this place is on embankment. The station-house is
set back from the railway about 30 feet, with a fore-court intervening about 34
feet in width. The building is 26 feet in front, and 31 feet 6 inches in depth.
On the upper floor, which is on a level with the fore-court, is a waiting-room,
the descent from which to the booking-office below by a flight of twenty steps.
The police-inspectors house is contiguous to offices; and the
conveniences are placed in the cellars underneath the fore-court. The
passengers leaving by a train pass through the booking-office up the stairs
into the waiting-room, and from thence across the fore-court to the platform;
while those arriving leave the station by a flight nineteen wooden steps, 6
feet in width, and on the right side of the fore-court. The station platform is
of wood, 8 feet 10 inches wide; and between the ways is a second platform of
wood, 2 feet 9 inches wide, and 7 inches high above the rails. The whole width
of way from the platform to the top of the slope on the opposite side is 26
feet 5 inches. The stationary engine-house is on the opposite side of the way;
and besides the engine and boiler-rooms, there are under the same roof the
porters lodge, oil-room, &c.; The pumping-engine has a 6-inch
cylinder and 2-feet stroke; the usual working pressure is about 34 lbs. The
water is derived from the river Avon, and let into a large tank built for the
purpose. At a distance from the station of about a quarter of a mile is a
locomotive engine house, which will hold three engines and tenders shed at this
station. There is also a carriage-shed at this station. The persons employed at
this station are, one ticket-collector, one inspector, four police, five
porters, one stationary engine-man, three engine -drivers, two firemen, two
smiths, one stoker, three fitters, two cleaners, two coke-men, and two
carpenters.' The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland, Francis Wishaw
(1842).

Rugbys second station, also to the west of the present
station, but nearer, was built at the junction with the Midland Counties
Railway. The new Station, which was jointly managed, gained a reputation for
its haphazard development: 'The general state of the railway does not call
for any more minute observation. Such of the stations and other works as were
not in a perfect finished state at the time of the last annual meeting, have
since been completed, and the directors believe, that, in all the arrangements,
and in the working of the line, the expectations and requirements of the public
have been most satisfactorily answered. The only exception of which the
directors are aware, is the Rugby station, where, notwithstanding the large
sums that have been expended in providing amply for the convenience of the
public, and in adopting the precise mode of communication pointed out by the
London and Birmingham Company, at this important place of junction, complaints
are still made of the insufficiency of the arrangements. This has been a source
of great disappointment to the directors, after the unlooked for expense which
has already been incurred, but alterations are in progress by which they hope
to remedy every reasonable ground of dissatisfaction.' The Derby Mercury,
18th August 1841.

The opening of the Grand Junction Railway in 1837 created a
rail link between Birmingham and the North West, which was soon extended to
Rugby, while the opening of the Midland Counties Railway to Rugby in 1840
created a rail route to the North East. The outcome was that Rugby became an
extremely busy transport node through which passed most of the rail traffic
between London and the Midlands, the north of England, Scotland and North
Wales. The Station and its Junction were to retain this position for the next
25 years, during which time the town also grew in size and importance: 'The
rise and progress of Rugby station is thus given by the Morning Chronicle: When
the London and Birmingham Railway was opened, the little village of Rugby was
known only as the locale of a celebrated Grammar School. Now it bids fair to
become a large, bustling market town, and the great centre of the principal
Railway traffic in the heart of England. The station on the line when first
opened, and for a good many years after, was not 40 yards in length. Now it is
about 150; and looking from one end to the other it appears as if it had been
laid down for some splendid promenade. Since the traffic on the Midland Railway
was diverted towards it, and the Midland Company got a joint interest in the
station, notwithstanding its vast accommodation, it is now found to be greatly
too small. To remedy this and to provide for the traffic on the Trent Valley
line, now in progress at the Rugby terminus, as well as for the traffic to the
Rugby, Warwick, and Leamington Railway, which is also to use this station as a
central depot for goods, and for the conveyance of passengers from the East to
the West of England and to Wales, plans have been drawn of such additions and
alterations as will serve to make the station at once the most extensive and
magnificent in the kingdom. The Midland Counties and the Trent Valley Companies
will mostly confine themselves to the North side, while the London and
Birmingham and the Rugby, Warwick and Leamington Companies will chiefly occupy
the South. At present, the London and Birmingham have got a spacious fitting
and engine establishment on the Rugby side, attached to which, for the
accommodation of the fitters and their families, two rows of handsome and
commodious cottages have been erected, and with their neat and tidy plots of
garden ground, constitute quite a picture along the line. In a straight line
from these cottages, a new road has been laid out, and nearly all built upon by
handsome houses, constituting what is styled railway Terrace, the
upper end of which joins the village, which now boasts double the population it
contained only ten years ago.' The Coventry Herald, 12th June 1846.

Charles Newmarch, returning to Rugby after some years
absence, remarked on the change to the station architecture that had occurred,
describing the original station as being of timber construction: 'But when
we at length stopped at the station, a great change was indeed perceptible. We
remembered nothing of the long range of building, with its engine houses and
immense establishment; when we left Rugby, a little wooden station of very
moderate dimensions was found sufficient for all the traffic that then existed,
whereas now we have a platform of some hundred feet in length, and even more
accommodation is still required.' Recollections of Rugby, C. H. Newmarch
(1848).

Other lines to Stamford (1850) and to Leamington (1851)
added to the traffic, to the extent that Rugby Station eventually became so
congested that on occasions trains had to wait hours to pass through, leading
to much frustration and anger among travellers (and to Charles Dickens
satirical tales of Mugby Junction): 'At about this time the attention
of the shareholders was first seriously directed to some new railway schemes
that were in contemplation; one of which came eventually to exercise an
important influence on the destinies of the Midland Company. This was a
proposal for a new line to connect the Midland system with the metropolis. Many
complaints had been made that the only access for Midland passengers to London
was by the circuitous and uncertain route of Rugby  uncertain because the
arrangements for the meeting of trains so frequently broke down. One gentleman,
for instance, declared at a public meeting at Leicester, that he had three
times in succession been detained three hours at Rugby; and it was declared
that many persons hated the name of Rugby.' The Midland Railway: its
rise and progress, FS Williams (1876).

The position was alleviated to some extent when, in 1857,
the Midland Railway negotiated an agreement with the Great Northern to run
trains into Kings Cross via Hitchin, and in 1859 when the London and North
Western opened a third track between Willesden and Bletchley. Nevertheless,
congestion remained serious due, in great part, to the heavy London-bound
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalfield traffic, which disgorged from the
former Midland Counties line: 'The embarrassment of the Midland Company,
too, may be imagined when they received such messages as, Stop all coals
from Butterley colliery for Acton, Hammersmith, and Kew, for three days, as
Willesden sidings are blocked up. The North London are blocked with
Poplar coals for all the dealers; Camden cannot receive any more for
Poplar. You must stop the whole till London is clear.
Rugby is blocked so as not to be able to shunt any more.
Camden and the North London are blocked with coals.' The Midland
Railway: its rise and progress, FS Williams (1876).

'On one occasion the North Western was so blocked with
traffic that it was forced to give notice to the Midland that it could not for
some time take on any coal traffic from Rugby, and that in consequence
five miles of coal trains accumulated at Rugby waiting for
conveyance to London . . . . It was under these circumstances that the Midland
directors promoted a line to London . . . . ' History of the London and
North Western Railway, WL Steel (1914).

The Midland Railways own line into London was
completed in 1868 with the opening of the Saint Pancras passenger terminus, to
be followed five years later by the prestigious Midland Grand Hotel. Despite
losing most of its traffic from the former Midland Counties Railway, Rugby
continued to remain inadequate for the freight traffic it carried. In other
respects, the station was poorly constructed and a constant source of
irritation to travellers, its particularly low platforms which enabled tyre
examination being a perennial source of complaint. Eventually, in 1882 . . .
.'. . . . the London and North-Western Railway voted a sum of £70,000
for the erection of a new station. The traffic had become so heavy that in the
present incommodious station it is worked with much difficulty and many delays
. . . . More than 120 passenger trains, only one of which does not stop, pass
through the station daily, and as there is no separate line for goods and
mineral trains, the stress of a proportionate number of these is added . . . .
a goods or mineral train is despatched every nine minutes during the night
time. Then there is the fact that coal trains for the South are made up at
Rugby of trucks coming from the Lancashire, South Yorkshire, Leicestershire,
Warwickshire, Cannock Chase, and other coalfields. About two years ago an
adequate goods station and large cattle sidings were built; but the usefulness
of these must to a very appreciable extent be counteracted, so long as the
present arrangement of metals is used. What shortcomings of the station are
that present themselves to the notice of passengers is tolerably well
known.' Birmingham Daily Post, 1st March 1884.

The new station was opened in July 1885. [18] It consisted
of an exceptionally large island platform (437 yards long by 37 yards wide), on
each side of which were two pairs of tracks to accommodate passenger and goods
traffic, with bay platforms at each end. Mid-way along each side of the island
were scissor junctions, which allowed two trains to use one
platform at the same time.Considerable re-engineering was also carried out to
the south of the Station to construct flyovers to keep the main line clear of
traffic from Northampton and Peterborough.

Following completion of the Midland main line into London,
the former Midland Counties Railway to Rugby lost its importance by 1884, the
service had diminished to five trains daily in each direction but a service
continued until the line was closed in December 1961. Elsewhere, the 1960s
marked the start of Rugbys decline as a railway town, in part due to Dr.
Beeching and his axe. Its locomotive sheds were closed in 1960 and in 1965, as
did the Locomotive Testing Station and the Great Central goods yard. Of the
railways that once converged on Rugby from nine directions, the line to
Leamington closed in 1965, followed in 1966 by the line to Peterborough and the
Great Central Railway south of Rugby. The section of the Great Central Railway
to Nottingham survived until 1969.

The Great Central bridge

On 25th December a large section of what remained of the
landmark GCR lattice bridge at Rugby (centre and south spans), commonly
referred to as the 'Birdcage', was lifted. The remaining sections were lifted
in the following days.